The present invention relates generally to the field of publicity on the World Wide Web and more particularly to the generation and display of images with animated microstructures.
The World Wide Web is becoming an important platform for electronic commerce. Corporations and individuals access the Web in order to buy various goods, both immaterial and material goods. In order to attract clients to given Web sites, there is a need for both information and publicity. Presently, publicity is achieved by putting banners on Web pages of interest to potential clients. Sometimes, in order to attract the clients attention, text banners are successively displayed and erased. These “text blinking” actions are distracting the client and annoying him.
In the present invention, we disclose a new method for delivering publicity and information. According to this new method, an image (the global image) incorporates a microstructure which may be a text, a logo, an ornament, a symbol or any other microstructure. The microstructure may move, change or evolve over time. The image is either static or may also evolve over time. When seen from a certain distance, mainly the image is visible. When seen from nearby, mainly the microstructure is visible. At intermediate distances, both the microstructure and the global image are visible. Thanks to its inherent artistic beauty and to the way it forwards a message, the new method is attractive to clients.
Several attempts have already been made in the prior art to generate images incorporating information at the microstructure level where from far away mainly the global image is visible and from nearby mainly the microstructure is visible. A method hereinafter called “Artistic Screening” was disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,198,545 (inventors: V. Ostromoukhov, R. D. Hersch, filed Mar. 27, 1995) and in the article by V. Ostromoukhov, R. D. Hersch, “Artistic Screening”, Siggraph 95, Proc. Computer Graphics, Annual Conference Series pp. 219-228. Another method hereinafter called “Multicolor Dithering method” was disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/477,544 (inventors: V. Ostromoukhov, R. D. Hersch, filed Jan. 4, 2000) and in the article by V. Ostromoukhov, R. D. Hersch, “Multi-Color and Artistic Dithering”, Siggraph'99, Computer Graphics Proceedings, Annual Conference Series, 1999, pp. 425-432. A further method for incorporating a microstructure into an image by computing color differences is disclosed in European Patent application 99 114 740.6 (inventors R. D. Hersch, N. Rudaz, filed Jul. 28, 1999). An additional method for creating microstructures within an image relies on a large dither matrix whose successive threshold levels represent the microstructure and uses standard dithering to render the final image (see for example the paper by Oleg Veryovka and John Buchanan, Halftoning with Image-Based Dither Screens, Graphics Interface Proceedings, 1988-99, Ed. Scott MacKenzie and James Stewart, Morgan Kaufmann Publ.
Another approach for embedding a microstructure within a color image relies on the modification of brightness levels while preserving the chromaticity of the image (see U.S. Pat. No. 5,530,759, Color Correct Digital Watermarking of Images, inventors: W. Braudaway, K. A. Magerlein and F. C. Mintzer). However, in this last method, if the microstructure incorporates large uniform surfaces, the global image may be subject to significant changes and the microstructure may become visible from a large distance.
Furthermore, all of these previous methods were focussed on static images, mainly for printing purposes and did not disclose how to create attractive dynamic images, i.e. images whose microstructure evolves over time.
The disclosed method distinguishes itself from traditional dynamic text display (for example traditional TV spots containing text lines moving across the display) by the fact that in the new method, the text is embedded as a microstructure layer within a global image which may be totally independent of the text. In addition, when seen from a certain distance, the microstructure disappears and only the global image remains visible.